Writing the book on 100 years of Marin's Mountain Play

WHENEVER WEST MARIN writer Elisabeth Ptak does a reading for her fascinating new coffee table book, "Marin's Mountain Play: 100 Years of Theatre on Mount Tamalpais," she asks her audience, "How many of you have heard of the Sleeping Lady of Mount Tamalpais?"

They are as surprised as she was when she tells them that, while researching the Mountain Play's history, she discovered that the story of the Indian princess asleep on Mount Tam is not only apocryphal, it isn't a Native American myth at all, but the invention of a Hollywood screenwriter named Dan Totherow, who used it in his script for "Tamalpa," the 1921 Mountain Play. "Tamalpa" was so popular that it was restaged seven more times over the years.

Totherow was commissioned by director Garnet Holme, another major figure in Mountain Play history, who asked him to write a show about the native people who lived on top of Mount Tam.

"After Dan did some research, he came back and said, 'You know, the Indians didn't actually live up there,'" Ptak said. "And Holme said, 'Then make it up.' And now that made-up story has become part of the legend of Marin County, and it has definitely become part of the DNA of the Mountain Play."

With a foreword by Inverness artist Tom Killion, who also created the cover illustration, "Bolinas Ridge to Point Montara," Ptak's book is as colorful and entertaining as the big outdoor productions staged in the 4,000-capacity Cushing Memorial Amphitheater, built of native serpentine stone by the Works Progress Administration during the Depression on the mountain's east peak.

"They hired a man named Emerson Knight, a landscape architect, to draw up a plan for the seating," Ptak explained. "He was a good choice because he loved theater, but he was also a hiker and he really appreciated the beauty of that location. He traveled in Greece, had been impressed by their ancient amphitheaters, and had that in mind in creating the mountain theater. He wanted it to look completely natural, to have a timeless quality."

Organized in four acts — "Theatre with Altitude," "Mountain Play Lore," "People Behind the Plays" and "The Mount Tamalpais Experience" — the book is brimming with photos, from vintage pictures of the passion plays the hiking community put on in the early days, beginning with "Abraham and Isaac" in 1913, to the colorful Broadway musicals the late executive director, Marilyn Smith, began producing in the early 1970s, rescuing the play from irrelevance and impending oblivion.

A tireless promoter, Smith would go to great lengths to put on the most sensational productions she could, once traveling to Cuba to bring back dancers for the gang scenes in "West Side Story."

"She was the kind of person who wouldn't take no for an answer," Ptak said. "Her daughter said people looked at her as if she had firecrackers going off behind her as she walked because she radiated energy and excitement and a little bit of danger."

The show must go on, the old saying goes, but that doesn't mean the Mountain Play has had a continuous run for 100 years. Ptak's book lists the name of the play and the director for each year since 1913, noting the four-year gap during World War II as well as the cancellation in the 1920s that reminds us what a cow county Marin was in those days.

"In 1924 they didn't do a play because of a quarantine due to hoof and mouth disease," Ptak chuckled.

Rain and inclement weather have also scotched individual performances. And the theater was once emptied by a bomb threat in the middle of a show. The audience was told to head for the exits, but to leave behind their coolers and backpacks and picnic baskets, which turned out to be a mistake.

"That meant there were that many more packages for the bomb squad to test," Ptak pointed out. Fortunately, there was no bomb.

For the 100th anniversary, the Mountain Play is reprising "The Sound of Music," the popular Tony Award winner that it's presenting for the third time. It opens May 19 and runs for five performances through June 16. It's directed by newcomer Jay Manley, who took over from Jim Dunn, the longtime Mountain Play director who retired last year after helming spectacular shows on the mountain for three decades.

"In interviewing people for the book, I found over and over that people get involved with the play and stay involved, whether it's as an actor or crew person or volunteer," Ptak said. "There's this dedication, but even 'dedication' doesn't capture the emotion that I felt and heard from so many people."

She's talking about people like her husband, Gene Ptak, who has acted in the play; the late leading man John McDill, who was in so many plays that Dunn nicknamed him John McMountain; perennial leading lady Susan Zelinsky, aka Susan Z; and the late actor and board member Marion Hayes Cain, known as "the darling of the Mountain Play."

The book was edited by Sara Pearson, executive director of the Mountain Play Association.

As she looks toward the play's future, her first order of business is to replenish the association's reserve funds, which were drained dry over the three years of the recession, when the play lost nearly half its audience. Despite a rainout, the show made money last year for the first time in four years, but not enough to make up for the deficit. She's looking to raise at least $200,000 to hold in reserve, not an unreasonable amount for an annual production with a budget approaching $1 million.

"Once the 100th anniversary is over, my first job is to refill the coffers," she said.

After that, her focus will be on establishing a permanent home for the people who put on the play every year. She and her staff operate out of a space in the old Scout Hall in Mill Valley. Costumes are stored here and there, and casting and rehearsals are held in school gyms, multi-purpose rooms and wherever else they can work before the final rehearsals on the mountain.

"How did we get to be 100 years old and not have a home?" Pearson asks. "We're vagabonds. It's crazy."

If all goes well, the venerable Mountain Play will begin its next 100 years with money in the bank and a place to call home.

"It's a minor miracle the Mountain Play got to be 100 years old," Pearson said. "But it's definitely here to stay now. The 100th anniversary book was a way of not only looking back, but setting the stage for looking ahead."